A personal story of neurodivergence, school struggles, and how effort was misunderstood at 17. For years, I believed my struggles with focus, energy, and motivation were simply part of my depression — or evidence that I wasn’t trying hard enough. At 17, when I couldn’t read a book for a class assignment, that belief led to an adolescent psychiatric hospitalization and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. In this episode, I slow that story way down and look underneath the depression. I share how u...